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{My Story}

Hi there and welcome to Catie's Corner. I'm thrilled you're here! I'm a 35 year old wife, mother, and foodie who loves crafting, decorating, organizing, and of course cooking. We live in Calgary, Alberta. Although I live in Canada, I am not Canadian. I'm a California girl, born and raised. Here's more about me and my life.

The Story of Me & Mr. CC

It all started back in January of 2000. I was living in Las Vegas with my, now ex, then husband. (I'm originally from Chico, Ca.)
We were unhappily married and our marriage was definitely on the rocks.
Shortly before the new year I had given him an ultimatum to change a
few things or I was done. At the same time Mr. CC was living in Calgary
and was in a very similar relationship, except he had a 18 month old
daughter, Miss E. One night in mid-January I was chatting in an AOL chat room (remember AOL?) . I would like to make it very clear that I was in a regular
chat room. It wasn't a room for singles or people looking to "hook up".
It was just a normal chat room where men and women from all over the
world could chat. Keep in mind this was back when the internet was still
pretty new, and I thought it was soo cool that I could talk to people
in England, Japan, where ever. Cool! Anyway, back to my story. So I was
chatting with some people in a Montreal chat room. Someone asked me
where I lived and I wrote, "Las Vegas". After I wrote that some guy
responded, "I love Vegas!". Well that guy turned out to be Mr. CC!

We chatted with some other people for a while and then ended up PMing each other.(PM = private messaging) He
seemed like a nice guy and we had a lot in common. We ended up chatting
a few times that week. Every time we did, neither of us mentioned being
married. We would talk about our spouses, but referred to them as our
ex's. This went on for a couple weeks and I started to have real
feelings for him and felt bad that I was lying about not being married.
One night while we were chatting I told him I had something to tell him,
and he said he had something he needed to tell me too. Well, I'm sure
you can guess what we had to tell each other. We came clean and told one
another that we were married. Mr. CC also told me that he had a
daughter. Telling each other the truth actually brought us closer!

After
that night we started talking on the phone every couple of days. It was
kinda crazy how strong our feelings for each other were. Around this
time we had only known each other for about two months and we were
deeply in love. Since things between us were moving soo fast, we thought
it would be best if we met in person. You know, to make sure we weren't
romanticizing our relationship. - I should mention that by this point
Mr. CC and his ex had filed for legal separation. And I had told my
husband I wanted a divorce and was moving out. - So in mid-March Mr. CC
flew down to Vegas for five days. It was like we'd always been together,
we just clicked. Although I will admit that being around him the first
hour was very weird. When you've only talked to someone on the phone and
seen a couple pictures of them, it's a very strange feeling to actually
be sitting next to them. There was a point when I told him to just
talk and not look at me! hahaha The five days flew by and before we knew
it he was on a plane back to Calgary.

That's when
things went lightening fast. He found a place for us to live and moved
out. I started packing, bought a one-way ticket and put in my notice at
work. I also filed for divorce. I'm sure most of you know how quickly
you can get a divorce in Las Vegas. The morning of April 28th, 2000 I
boarded a plane and was on my way to Calgary. I had never even been to
Canada. To be honest, I had never even thought about visiting
Canada. And now here I was, on my way to live with a guy I'd only known
in person for 5 days! What was I thinking?? hahaha Well obviously this
story has a happy ending. We've been together ever since and added a
daughter to our little family. We finally made our love "legal" on
August 8, 2009.

Yep,
I'm a crier. I was crying all through the ceremony. I still have the
ugly red cry face in this pic. But hey, my hair looks great. ; )

Our
little family! I can't believe how little the girls were. : ( They
grow up soo fast! Miss E is 14 and Miss A is 6.

Life
over the past 12 years has been pretty good. We're still crazy about
each other. I'm a stay at home mom. Our girls are awesome! I love his
family. And things with Miss J, his ex, have turned out great. We're
actually friends. She even attended my bridal shower. Yes ladies, it is
possible! There is hope. =)

The Story of Me & Mrs. Ex

So you're probably thinking, if I was the ex I'd hate me. I know I
would! In some sense I was kind of the other woman. Now whether or not
Miss J hated me at the beginning I don't know. I do know she didn't
blame me for their marriage ending. She's told me a couple times over
the past years. You can bet that was a HUGE relief to hear!! (Thank you
for that J!!) She did however have nothing to do with me. Over the first
few years she wouldn't really speak to me. At first it wasn't at all.
Eventually she'd talk to me only about things that concerned Miss E. It
was never very friendly or personal. That's how our relationship was for
the first 5 years or so.

You can imagine that when we
found out I was pregnant I was kind of dreading telling her. We didn't
know how she'd react. She hadn't wanted Miss E to be an only child, but
she was in a relationship with an man who already had two daughter's
that were older than Miss E. He didn't want to have more kids. So this
is why I was nervous to tell her. Would she be angry or jealous that it
was me making Miss E a big sister and not her? Was she going to stop
talking to me? These are some of the thoughts that went through my head.
I was only six weeks pregnant when we told her. And to my surprise she
started talking to me more then ever. She'd actually talk to me about
things other than Miss E.

After Miss A was born our
relationship blossomed more and more. We would go to the mall together
or over to her house to hang out. And in 2010 we went on a Spring Break
trip together. Just me, her and the girls. 10 days together, and it was
nice! We made a great team. I love to cook, so I'd do the cooking. She
doesn't like cooking all that much, so she'd do the clean up. We joked
how two moms in a house would be pretty cool. Sharing a guy, not soo
much. haha ; )

I still don't know why having Miss A
changed soo much between us. Honestly, I've never asked. My only guess
is, having Miss E's sister meant I would be a permanent person in her
life. (Is that close J?) Whatever the reason, I'm soo happy with how
things are now. We are friends. We get together for Sunday dinner a
couple times a month at her place. We occasionally to go a movie
together and she's in my Dinner Club. This summer we're planning on
doing some camping in her RV with the girls. I've also sort of been a
moderator between her and Mr. CC. I think I've made their relationship
easier. We don't really all hang out, but communication is good. And the
best part, Miss E knows we're all on the same page and all here for
her.

I wanted to share our story to give encouragement
to those of you out there going through something similar. Maybe you're
the ex or maybe you're the new woman. Whatever the case is, there is
hope. Things can get better over time. I doubt Miss J knows how I felt
all those years she wouldn't talk to me. It's hard being the new woman
too. You don't really know where you fit into the child's life. You're
not a biological parent, but you're expected to treat them like your
own. That was something I really loved, being a part of Miss E's life. I
always treated her like my own and loved her from day one. It seems you
always run the risk of overstepping some imaginary line though. It's a
hard balance of parenting but not over parenting. Does that even make
sense? If it's this hard for me to explain, imagine how hard it is to
live. Being a step-parent is a tough job, but it's one I love! It's been
an honor to watch Miss E grow from a toddler to a teenager. She has
become an incredible young lady. I'm looking forward to watching her
grow into an amazing woman.

So there it is. It's all
out there now. I know it's not the best love story. I know the timing on
our meeting couldn't have been worse. But it's our story, for
better or worse. I wasn't sure if I
should post this or not. It's a little scary to put soo much of me out
there. I just felt like it was time to share more of myself with you.
Reading personal stories about other bloggers is always something I
enjoy. It makes me feel like - hey, they're just like me! My hope is
that some of you can relate to my story.
Thanks for reading! : )